my dump (NEW: EGA jack!)

[eck]

new game idea, which im still thinking of.  so far all i know is that i want to get better at volumetrics.

[Ryona]

Looks more like just a wizard than a cross-class of wizard and ninja.

The animations look really good. The character could use some depth though. If you're going for a flat look, you may need to give it some outlines.

[sharprm]

Those are excellent Eck but you should rethink the movement of the hat. I don't think that the front little bit would be so flexible to bounce the way it does. I think a much larger section should bob up and down. You might want to rework the shape of the hat (or have another shade) to make it look less like a top hat. The hat movement for jump is a bit too extreme.

[eck]

sharprm, i shall address the hat issue soon, especially on the jump.  when i made it, i really had no idea what i was doing, as i am a total amateur to animating, so once i get some more advice on how to go about doing it, i will probably rework that one all together.

ryona, one of the goals of this project is for me to get a better grasp on volumetrics, and one of the ways i was trying to go about it was without outlines and shading, forcing me to put shapes together properly.  also, ninjas come later.  this is just a wizzard. 

[eck]

sorry for bump


I started the health bar and portrait thing, and I think its pretty much finished.  Now i want to get started on some background work.  I did some tiles, although they are bland and unoriginal, and i would love to do something different to replace them.  I am also trying to think of some ideas for a storyline, so if anyone has some, id be greatful for a post.

[Sherman Gill]

The background tiles also suffer from being higher contrast then the foreground. Reduces readability a lot!

[eck]

the background is 32x32 blocks of mspaint default colors so that i know that im tiling correctly, as paint doesn't have any tiling support.  (or any support for that matter :/ )

[eck]

wellllll.... this was going to be my secret santa present, but obviously i bit off more then i could chew, and ended up short on time and in over my head, so i made something new.  hopefully with some critiques, i can finish this off and give it to my partner as a 'bonus' present.

[Terley]

I think you we're really on the right track, you could of possibly just cropped it and concentrated on a smaller area if you thought you were biting off more than you could chew; like this maybe, I think the santa really could do with some references, that santa hat looks more like one of those russian soldier hats or whoever wore them.. Your palette could do with some tweaking, just altering the levels off each colour and seeing how you can make use of existing ones.



Its a pitty you gave up on this because you've only got one day left and im sure you could have simplified this rather than starting a whole new piece.. Mine was considerably longer and I had anticipated to colour in all my linework but I ended up chopping parts up and ditching some linework to make it feasible. Would it wreck the suprise if I said my piece is 'comicish'? as in panelled.

[eck]

more work on the mockup.

ter, im going to keep working on it over time, im just putting it down for a few days to take a break?  the palette was one of my main concerns with that piece.  i really have no idea of how to go about 'unifying' it, so any advice or color edits are welcome.

[eck]

[surt]

Very rough edit:


Most of the problems with this are in anatomy, pose and composition.

Anatomy:
Santa's head looks freakishly small. This is partly because the hair at both sides of the face combines to be as wide as the face is. Widened face and narrowed hair.
Kids head is a little on the small size. Embiggened it.
Santa's left upper arm is far too long. Shortened it.
Santa's nose is very narrow. Widened it.
Hat is freakishly big. Depending on stiffness of fabric it shouldn't rise too much beyond hair level. Shrunk it to better fit head.

Pose:
Both characters are holding their elbows up in the air which looks very uncomfortable. Relaxed their arms by lowering elbows to rest point.
Kid seems to be looking nowhere in particular while santa seems to be looking directly at the camera. Neither look very natural. Made them look at each other's faces.
Santa's and kids leg angles don't seem to fit the viewing angle. Levelled them out a ways.

Composition:
The off-centre placement of santa and massive size of the sack confuse the focus of the image. Reduced size of sack and centred santa.

[eck]

wowow big edit :O

thanks a ton surt, this will be updated soon (or later?)!

[eck]

EGA jack.

ref: http://www.barcade.com/media/images/2653_JackSparrow300.jpg

i want LOTS of crits on this one.

[Malor]

you could have gotten a lot more into this piece with some dithering, as of right now, there is so little detail, it is very hard to capture the likeness of Cap'n Jack.